The CPAN Testers Preferences site has for sometime now only offered the ability to allow authors to receive the Daily Summary Report. This was a reaction to the authors who did not wish to receive the deluge of reports that they had started to receive, with the increased volume of testing and reporting done by CPAN Testers. However, there have been several authors who have asked to still receive the individual reports, while others are happier to receive less frequent reporting.

After several test runs over the last couple of weeks, the site can now offer the following reporting options:

Daily Summary Report

Weekly Summary Report (choose your prefered day)

Monthly Summary Report

Individual Reports

The Daily Summary Report remains as is, and has received no changes. The Weekly Summary Report and Monthly Summary Report simply provide the same style of reporting as the Daily Summary report, just over a longer period. Note that you can choose which day you wish to receive the Weekly Summary Report too.

Lastly we have the Individual Reports. Essentially this allows the author to get the reports direct from the tester again. However, it comes with several caveats. Firstly the process behind the scenes to generate the mails is initially only going to be run once a day. Once any issues that surface over the next few weeks are resolved, this will become more frequent. Secondly, the mailer process does not receive the reports directly from the tester, it is not a mail relay in the traditional sense. The latter therefore could cause problems.

The process for Individual Reports is to read the reports from the CPAN Testers database and regenerate the original email. Except it isn't the original email, as it isn't sent from the testers original IP. This is where problems may arise. The mails are sent from the CPAN Testers server, and any receiving server that implements SPF checking, will undoubtably reject the mails. This is perhaps most likely to affect reports from testers that use GMail or Hotmail accounts. Some authors have a challenge/request email setup, which could prove troublesome unless you're able to whitelist the CPAN Testers server in some way. However, if you've actively selected to receive Individual Reports, then I would hope that you are prepared for this. Lastly, we have the issue of dubious email addresses used by testers. While 'root@localhost' can get through some systems, it may get rejected by a few.

Over the next few weeks I shall attempt to watch for any issues (as above or otherwise), and will review how the mails are sent out. If specific domains or addresses prove too troublesome, then I may have to implement a blacklist to prevent some reports from being sent. If you wish to receive the Individual Reports and spot any issues client side, please let me know and I will look into it. If you have suggestions for improving the reporting process further, then please let me know too. Though always bear in mind this system currently operates for almost 4,000 authors :)